


a natural animal

by attheborder



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: (to the tune of taylor the latte boy), Breathplay, Emotional Affordances Of Reptilian Neurology, Fluff and Smut, M/M, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Service Top Crowley (Good Omens), Snake Crowley (Good Omens), Snakejob (Handjob But Snake), Xeno, crowley the service snake
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-26
Updated: 2020-02-26
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:00:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22905868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/attheborder/pseuds/attheborder
Summary: “I’m in your bed,” said Crowley.“You are.”“And I’m a snake.”“One must start somewhere.”
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 92
Kudos: 682
Collections: Hot Omens, Ixnael’s Recommendations, The Snake Pit





	a natural animal

“Nah. Come off it. I must’ve.”

“You _haven’t!_ Not where I could see! _”_

Crowley frowned, trying to peer past the fog of inebriation into six thousand years of memories.

“Huh,” he said, at length. “S’really been that long?”

Aziraphale nodded, wide-eyed. “Mm. Not since Eden. I… I didn’t even think you could still do it. Thought maybe I— imagined it, or. Or.”

Crowley gaped, wordless noises of offense crackling from his throat. “I— what! _Course_ I can still—! It— it’s what I _am!_ Underneath all this, yeah?” He motioned unsteadily to his body, stretched out on Aziraphale’s familiar backroom sofa. “Doesn’t just— _go away!”_

The angel leaned back tipsily in his seat, and gestured at Crowley with his wine glass. “Let’s have it, then. Go on.”

“Wh— what— here? _Now?”_ Crowley protested. A hot, sticky anxiety suddenly flooded his veins.

Aziraphale nodded. “Oh, won’t you?”

The prospect of Aziraphale seeing him like _that_ for the first time in six thousand years was, upon consideration, utterly terrifying. He’d be bared to the soul, no sunglasses or saunter to cover up his scorched demonic essence.

But— Aziraphale was _looking_ at him, all fluttery pleading pout, and so Crowley didn’t really have a choice, did he? 

With a sigh, he set down his glass, and, with minimal fanfare, turned into a snake.

Skin and cloth smoothly transformed into shining scales. He hissed a sigh of relief as he shifted; the sensation wasn’t _good,_ exactly, it was always a bit scary doing this, but there was a certain relief to it all the same.

He slithered around a bit on the sofa, and settled into a comfortable position, his coils looped gracefully underneath his angular head. 

Then he looked up at the angel.

Aziraphale had put his own glass down with one shaking hand, and clapped the other to his mouth. He’d gone stiff and tense, and Crowley immediately thought he’d made a horrible mistake.

“Angel— talk to me— what’s wrong— I’m sssorry, let me change back, I _knew_ I’d—“

“Don’t you _dare,”_ hiccuped Aziraphale, eyes swimming, and as his hand left his face Crowley could see now that his expression was one not of fear, but of intense, rapturous joy. “Come _here,_ oh, you wonderful creature—“

Crowley hesitated, a trembling pile of scale and terror curled up on the brocade throw.

Aziraphale beckoned again. “I _must_ touch your— oh, I mean, if you wouldn’t mind horribly, it’s that you just look so— _inviting—“_ He averted his eyes now, trailing off, but Crowley got the picture, and rather liked the look of it himself.

So he slithered down from the sofa and across to the angel’s armchair, winding himself obediently up the side of the chair and coming to rest, unbelievably, around Aziraphale’s shoulders. His tail curled happily in Aziraphale’s lap, and before he could even toss off a laconic joke to diffuse the tension he was _sure_ ought to be building up by now, there were soft hands stroking their way down his scales, and all verbal function merrily deserted him.

It felt— _incredible._ Aziraphale’s well-kept fingers caressed every inch of Crowley’s flexible spine, brushing against his sensitive red underbelly with impossible kindness.

Flicking his tongue out, Crowley could smell the delight bubbling up from every inch of Aziraphale’s corporation. Was the angel _always_ like this? Always so incandescently, purely happy? Crowley’s senses, in human form, were not nearly so attuned, so there was no way of knowing, really— but Crowley really wanted to believe this was a special occasion. That this was something _he’d_ done.

“Worth the wait?” Crowley managed, at some point. Aziraphale was leaning back in his chair, eyes closed in satisfaction as he continued to offer Crowley touch after touch.

Aziraphale’s sea-glass eyes blinked open, met Crowley’s yellow slits hovering inches away.

“Oh, I’d say so,” he said, “you _beautiful_ thing.”

Crowley had never been more grateful, in that moment, that snakes could not blush.

***

“Is it... different?”

Crowley had lost track of time completely at this point. The only thing he was aware of was Aziraphale’s skin against his scales, inhumanly warm and positively, well, heavenly. He’d find time to wonder later whether Aziraphale boosted his own body temperature with a quick miracle just for Crowley’s comfort, but for now he was just exulting in it, trying to press himself closer and closer.

He stirred back into full awareness at the sound of the angel’s voice. “What d’you mean?”

“Being a snake. Is it any different than being human shaped? Other than the obvious— well, visible differences, you know.”

How was Crowley supposed to answer that? He didn’t know if he could put it into words, the way it felt to be like this, move like this. Form shapes nature, and though if he exerted a bit of imagination he could’ve easily pushed the boundaries of what a snake-shaped creature ought to be able to do, on a fundamental level it was a big change from his preferred form.

Like this, he saw things differently. Literally— his field of vision was desaturated, flattened to soft grays and blues. And then inside his head, everything was just… _simpler._ A bit more animalistic, a bit more instinctual. The constant distraction of pesky human hormones and the endless zip of nerves and neurotransmitters had subsided, over the last dozen-odd minutes since he shifted form, into something quieter, cooler.

There was a kind of reptilian rationality framing his mind; thoughts were falling neatly into line, one after the other, instead of tumbling around in a mad, chaotic dance.

For example: he was perfectly at ease with how close he wanted to be to Aziraphale, because it was very clear to him that Aziraphale couldn’t get enough of him when he was like this. If this was something they both wanted, then it was something they could both have. Easy as that.

“Yeah,” he answered, sliding smoothly around Aziraphale, winding over his shoulders and down into that plush lap, pouring his thick coils across warm thighs. “It’s pretty damn different. Sort of … out of body experience. Brain’s all… snakey.”

“And you’re alright with that? No… rush to go back?” Lovely angel fingers skittered against Crowley’s neck, tracing gentle patterns in the scales there.

Crowley couldn’t shrug, so he let out a hiss that he tried to inject with as much casual ambivalence as possible. “Nah. Why? Got sssomething planned?”

A flick of his tongue brought Crowley the scent of a sharp tang of anxiety slicing cleanly through the cloud of Aziraphale’s joy, but shaped like this, it was much more difficult than usual for Crowley to catch that contagion. Instead, he waited patiently for it to pass. When it dissipated at last, Aziraphale smiled that nervous smile of his, and said lightly, “This chair is a bit small for two, don’t you think?”

“Certainly, angel.”

“Wouldn’t want to — what is the phrase — _cramp your style,_ my dear.”

“Consider me well-cramped.”

“Well, then. No sense overstaying our welcome. I have plenty of room upstairs for you to spread out, in all your glory.”

Crowley snaked up Aziraphale’s arm to settle around his broad shoulders again, and then Aziraphale was standing up and taking Crowley with him as he headed for the stairs.

“Enjoying the _ride?”_ said Aziraphale.

“Ssss. Don’t say stuff like that—”

“I’ll say what I please, thank you."

Crowley began to object, but Aziraphale ran a hand against Crowley’s underbelly, which shut him up right away.

They reached the threshold of Aziraphale’s underused bedroom, and the angel didn’t even hesitate before flopping down on top of the sheets, letting Crowley slither out from around his arms to come to rest beside him, all black, glossy loops and slitted yellow eyes, pupils blown wide with anticipation.

“I’m in your bed,” said Crowley.

“You are.”

“And I’m a snake.”

“One must start somewhere.”

Crowley moved, like a liquid, to come to rest on the gentle curve of Aziraphale’s chest, staring unblinking into his oceanic gaze. With another fluid motion, he applied the mildest of pressure with his flexible stomach to a certain area south of Aziraphale’s waistband, and was rewarded with a gasp, and some satisfying sheet-clutching.

“Yessssss. One certainly must.”

***

Crowley was taking it slow and steady. He nosed gently at Aziraphale’s neck and ear as he coiled his tail atop the tantalizing firmness between the angel’s legs. His tongue flicked out every few seconds, to smell the thick, musky arousal beginning to permeate the air of the bedroom. 

But then, as he tried to work out what might be coming next, he got just a bit _too_ imaginative— and suddenly, there was a flood of very human anxiety intruding on the pleasantly calculated forward motion of his inner monologue. 

“Aziraphale.” 

“Hm?” Aziraphale smiled, wriggled a bit underneath Crowley’s lengthy weight.

“You should— sssober up.” 

“Oh, whatever for? This is _so_ lovely…” He ran a hand along Crowley’s spine, and Crowley resisted the urge to simply melt into it, let the comfortable, single-minded clarity of his snake-brain take over once more. 

“Ssss. Yeah, but—” Crowley really didn't _want_ to say it; he believed there was a very large chance that if Aziraphale found himself suddenly sober, his enthusiasm for this experience would vanish alongside the alcohol, and this lovely evening would draw to a close. But he knew he had to.

“I’ve been sober since I changed, and I’d like you to be, too. Doesn’t feel fair.”

“Mm. You’re sure?”

Crowley nodded. Aziraphale tipped his head back, wincing as the alcohol left his bloodstream. 

Crowley preemptively began to slide off of Aziraphale, with vague plans to curl up at his side until other options presented themselves. From behind Crowley, as he dropped down to the sheets, there was the sound of a delicate throat-clearing.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“I thought— well, I was thinking—” 

“Yes, you really do an awful lot of that,” said Aziraphale, propping himself up on one elbow, “but I’d rather hoped being a snake was doing something to alleviate it.” He sounded utterly clearheaded now, and Crowley felt a bit wrong-footed (wrong-scaled?) at the absence of the reaction he’d been expecting.

“I mean. It is. Er. It was,” he tried, but without prologue, Aziraphale was reaching out two solid, sure hands, and lifting Crowley’s coiled bulk with ease. He deposited Crowley right back onto the pleasant cushion of his stomach, and tipped his head coyly as he looked down at his abdomen’s reptilian adornment. 

“You were in the middle of something, if I recall?” 

Crowley hissed, hoping Aziraphale could tell it was a happy hiss, and began to unwind himself once more across the angel’s invitingly supine form. 

Summoning the serpentine confidence of the Original Tempter, he returned his head to that freeing linearity once more, recalling the single-minded intent that had been with him during his initial moments inside this dusty temple of angelic repose. 

He used a small miracle to loosen the fastening, and then slid his tail down inside Aziraphale’s trousers. He found the elastic of the angel’s underwear and pushed it down and away, while at the same time his top half moved upwards, curving underneath Aziraphale’s neck and making an arc around his shoulders. Then Crowley’s elegant black snout was resting just below Aziraphale’s chin, bobbing lazily in midair as his lower extremity found what it was looking for. 

With the sharp vision he had in this form, he could watch what he was doing to the angel playing out in ultra-high-definition across that beautifully familiar face. Cheeks flushed and eyelashes fluttered with blissed-out reverence as Crowley wrapped himself around Aziraphale’s cock, which was exquisitely hard and smooth against his scales. He flexed a bit, the gentlest of twisting pressure, and Aziraphale sucked in a breath, arching slightly underneath him. 

“How’sss that?” 

_“Wonderful,_ ” came the reply, and if Crowley could have somehow captured that precise desperate catch of Aziraphale’s voice in physical form, he would have strung it up on a golden chain and worn it proudly around his neck forever. 

Crowley flexed again, stronger this time, and the angel shuddered, sending one hand up to stroke at Crowley’s cool neck. Crowley pressed up into the touch for just a moment, then slid sleekly down against those soft fingers, and expended a small but important miracle to banish Aziraphale’s shirt, waistcoat, and bow tie. Insinuating himself directly against the suddenly revealed expanse of pale skin and golden hair, his red underbelly soaking up that infinite warmth, Crowley found Aziraphale’s nipple and played his flexible, quick tongue out against its pebbled surface. 

This brought forth a fresh set of squirms from the angel beneath him, and Crowley immediately lavished attention to the other nipple as well. He was coiling tighter and moving faster around Aziraphale’s cock all the while, waiting for some kind of sign that what he was doing was too much, but Aziraphale just panted and sighed endlessly, grinding up into the lustrous black form atop him. 

In Crowley’s human form, his snake-like characteristics were limited to distinctive eyes, embarrassingly scaly feet, and a sensitive— but not particularly specialized—sense of smell. 

Now, though, that sensitivity was multiplied exponentially, and in one particular direction. When his tongue met skin, Crowley could smell Aziraphale’s orgasm building up, blood vessels flooding open, synapses sparking pleasure all along that precious corporation’s nervous system. He could smell the angel’s approaching release, all that ramping desire— but there was something else, there, too. An absence. There was something Crowley wasn’t giving him. 

The unasked question answered itself, mere seconds after Crowley had noted its existence. 

“Crowley—” 

“Yessss?” He lifted his head, bringing him eye-to-eye with Aziraphale once more. 

“Could you—” Aziraphale gestured at his neck and swallowed, throat bobbing underneath delicate skin. “A little— pressure, right here?” 

Crowley stared, unblinking, wondering if he’d heard right. “Really?” 

Aziraphale nodded, giving Crowley’s back a long, eager stroke. “I find it enhances the experience tremendously. And you’d be so _good_ at it, shaped as you are, I’ve always— well. You don’t _have_ to, of course, but…?”

He let the request linger in the air, as Crowley processed, in an orderly fashion, what was being asked of him. If he were human shaped, he would have been stammering, twitching, dissembling frantically at this point. _No, I couldn’t— no, this isn’t a good idea— you know, I really ought to be going—_

But like this, it made as much sense as anything else. Aziraphale wanted it, and Crowley was currently in the business of giving Aziraphale what he wanted. 

“Sure thing, angel,” said Crowley, and Aziraphale’s answering smile of hungry gratitude was blinding as anything, especially without eyelids to defend against it. 

The knowledge that he couldn’t harm Aziraphale, that the angel had no biological need to breathe, and indeed had a reserve of angelic strength that vastly outstripped Crowley’s demonic capabilities in any form, snake or human, meant that Crowley felt no qualms against hooking himself underneath Aziraphale’s chin, winding himself tight and tighter. His tongue at Aziraphale’s skin brought on the intense scent of rushing blood and anticipation, mixing in with the irresistible aromas of angelic sweat, precome, and bodily heat that had already saturated his senses. 

“Like thisss?” he hissed after completing his loop, his snout bumping up against Aziraphale’s ear. 

Aziraphale let out a delighted, airless moan, and Crowley could feel the vibration humming through his scales, filling him full up with additional knowledge of the pleasure he was so ably imparting. 

“Oh, yes, Crowley— please, tighter—” 

This most secret shape of his, which he’d never felt an awful amount of positive emotion towards, vastly preferring his human form, now seemed to be practically brimming with unlocked potential. Crowley felt delightfully _used,_ or perhaps _useful;_ though neither of those words could really capture the precise alchemy of pride that built inside of him at the feeling of Aziraphale’s cock, riding up into the flexing, dextrous grip of his tail.

This was what he was for. Every twist of Crowley’s body, upper and lower, was met with an answering shake and clench from Aziraphale, joyous and demanding. Warm hands roamed Crowley’s midsection all the while; at one point, Aziraphale’s fingers skimmed the sensitive scales at the base of Crowley’s tail. 

Everything suddenly became a bit too much. And Crowley had already been enjoying himself more than enough— any additional sensation at all, and he wouldn’t be able to devote the proper amount of attention to the angel. So as gently as possible, he shifted his curves into a new configuration, neatly moving that special spot out of reach. 

Aziraphale’s breath grew shorter as Crowley constricted further. The angel probably couldn’t speak now if he tried, but Crowley didn’t need words when he could read Aziraphale’s desires in the detailed sentences pooling on his skin.

The scents were telling Crowley that Aziraphale didn’t want it to end; he didn’t want to let this go. The angel had always been a creature of the moment— Crowley couldn’t blame him for not quite being able to comprehend that there very well could be more of this, waiting in his future. 

“I’ve got you,” he said, gentle and low in Aziraphale’s ear, “I have you, angel, I can feel you. I know you’re close. Don’t you want it? I think you do. I think you want to come. And I want it too. Let’s ssseee it, angel.” 

It was the whisper of the Serpent of Eden; it was the hiss that made the world go round; and right now, it was all and only for Aziraphale. 

And it was enough. 

Aziraphale arched up off the bed with a cry choked off by Crowley’s coils, dappling Crowley’s curled midsection and the skin around it with come. Crowley unwound almost immediately from around Aziraphale’s neck, wanting to see, wanting to know. 

Aziraphale always rather resembled a work of art, but this was something else entirely. He looked utterly ruined, with his hair plastered damp at his forehead, and his neck red where Crowley had tightened against it. 

Crowley spared a glance down to where Aziraphale had marked his own scales, and the sight of all those gleaming spots on his dark flank sent an eager thrill right back up the length of him. 

When Aziraphale’s eyes opened a few endless seconds later, it was to Crowley’s graceful black head swaying above him, drinking it all in. 

“Oh. Hello, dear,” said Aziraphale, reaching up a weak hand, gentling Crowley’s head against it. 

Crowley’s mind was clear, with only one desire yet left in it. Giving into that desire would have its downsides— but gazing down at Aziraphale’s face, and the adoration it held, he knew it’d be worth it. 

Something wordless passed between them, in that delicate, suspended moment. Aziraphale gave a minute nod. And one slow, surreal second later, he had an armful of naked, man-shaped demon, all limbs and angles in a heap atop him. 

Crowley didn’t give Aziraphale any time at all to witness whatever idiotic expression he must’ve been wearing before diving in, and kissing the angel with pent-up ferocity. Aziraphale kissed back with equal intensity, one hand on Crowley’s bare back and the other clutching at his hair. 

Crowley kissed the angel and kissed him some more, as the frantic machinery of his own human cortex whined slowly back into action. 

His nerves flooded too quickly with hot tension and prickling doubt, but Aziraphale’s touch on him, there and there and _there,_ alleviated the worst of it. Aziraphale the manuscript-mender, the sword-bearer, eternal treasurer of material things; he had hands that grounded, fingers that settled, and they worked miracles. 

When Aziraphale shifted position, bringing a knee up between Crowley’s sprawled legs, Crowley’s body made a snap decision for him, grinding down onto that conveniently provided surface. 

He was instantly overwhelmed, at the edge in a shining second. His mouth slipped off of Aziraphale’s as he shook apart against him, face buried in the hollow of the angel’s neck, a desperate hiss escaping from behind his teeth. Any anger at himself about how _that_ hadn’t been part of the plan was swept away, in a wave of pleasure too intense to allow much else to matter. 

Eventually, he realized he’d collapsed on top of Aziraphale. The position was slightly more cumbersome in this form than it had been as a snake, so Crowley rolled off to the side onto his back, leaving one bare leg tangled territorially between Aziraphale’s still-trousered calves. With a blink he had himself and the angel clean, and they lay there, still and breathing.

“You weren’t naked before,” remarked Aziraphale, after a moment. He was smiling up at the ceiling, lacing his fingers together primly on his chest. Crowley watched the way they fit together, remembering how they’d felt running along his scales.

“Well-spotted,” mumbled Crowley, still dazed.

“If it’s your skin against mine you didn’t want to give up, what are you doing all the way over there, then?” 

Leave it to Aziraphale to couch a firm demand in such an inquiry. 

Crowley obeyed immediately, folding the angel in his arms, soaking up the heat that was still emanating from every soft inch. 

He could’ve drifted off to sleep then and there, but something itched at him. He stirred against Aziraphale, found the angel’s hand and gave it an inquisitive squeeze. “Did you know?” he asked quietly.

“Sorry, dear?” 

“That— that being— like that— would make it, y’know. Easier. For me.” 

“I had my suspicions, but nothing more than a hunch. Certainly a testable hypothesis, though.”

“What, I’m a— a science experiment? Little lab snake? I can’t _believe—_ ”

“Shush, you,” said Aziraphale, but then the smile faded from his voice, and he gripped Crowley’s hand a bit tighter. “So… so it _was_ easier, then… ?” 

There was a faint but familiar hesitance in his tone now. Crowley recalled what he’d tasted earlier—Aziraphale’s resistance towards moving forward in time, the uncertainty that history would ever repeat itself— and knew his job wasn’t finished just yet.

“It was,” said Crowley. “Clever thing.” He kissed Aziraphale’s shoulder, making his way up that warm neck until he was nipping at the angel’s ear. “But next time, I think we can skip the snake bit. If you like. Or— keep it in. Up to you.” 

“Oh,” said Aziraphale. “...Next time?” 

“Yes, of course, you birdbrain. Next time. Anytime.”

Crowley felt Aziraphale relax against him, which was yet another impossible sensation to add to his burgeoning catalog. Then the angel mumbled something, half-heard in the comfortable dimness of the aftermath.

“Come again?” Crowley said.

“I said— _all the time._ ” 

If Crowley had still been a snake, he probably would’ve had a clever comeback to that, something sexy and tempting that could send anticipatory shivers down Aziraphale’s spine.

But he wasn’t. So he didn’t.

“Er. Yeah,” he managed. Aziraphale’s answer was a laugh, soft and inviting as the rest of him, and it followed Crowley into his dreams as he fell asleep, curled up around the angel, as if a serpent around a sword.

***

**Author's Note:**

> crowley, the next morning: (ladybird voice) i was a SNAKE!!!!!!! who the fuck is a SNAKE their first time!!!!!!!!
> 
> i'm on [tumblr](http://areyougonnabe.tumblr.com) & [twitter!](http://twitter.com/areyougonnabe)


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